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Re: British Cars Digest #1105 Wed Feb 16 01:15:02 MST 1994

To: british-cars@autox.team.net
Subject: Re: British Cars Digest #1105 Wed Feb 16 01:15:02 MST 1994
From: DNESS@delphi.com
Date: Wed, 16 Feb 1994 08:01:55 -0500 (EST)
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Date: Tue, 15 Feb 1994 07:56:55 -0500 (EST)
From: DNESS@delphi.com
Subject: Re: British Cars Digest #1103 Mon Feb 14 17:40:20 MST 1994

Friends,
I had posted a message a few weeks ago regarding a really good parts contact:

His name is Richard Burger from Maine-ly MG's, I believe that he gets his
parts from Victoria British and Moss as well.  The big difference here is 
that he gets incredible discounts as he buys massive amounts of parts from
them, he passes this discount along to anyone who orders through him ( I 
think he is trying to get some award for largest purchaser ).  I believe
that he can probabally get you everything that you need, not only for MG's
but for anything that Victoria and Moss carries at discounted rates.  He can
also have these shipped directly to your door from the factory.  As far as
defects and backorders go, they try to take care of him as much as possible
due to the importance of his business.  Feel free to give him a call or fax.
He is planning to get online within the next month or so, hopefully.  This
then welcomes the possibility of communicating via E-Mail.

Maine-ly MG's
Richard Burger
176 Lincoln St.
Bangor, Maine  04401

phone  (207)945-6823
fax    (207)945-3518

Give him a call, I think you will be pleasantly suprised, if you have any
questions you can E-Mail me for the time being until he gets online.

DNESS@DELPHI.COM

Cheers!
Dan

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Date: Tue, 15 Feb 94 11:05:53 PST
From: sfisher@Megatest.COM (Scott Fisher)
Subject: AutoWeek Reader Fax Poll

This week, AutoWeek is holding a reader's fax poll asking the
question:

Should BMW revive the MG [sic] marque and put it on a roadster
for sale in the US?

Most of you can imagine what my response was, but if you can't,
or if you'd just like to read it anyway, here's the fax I sent.
If Pieschetrieder takes me up on this, Bay Area SOLs will be
hearing about it soon enough...

- --Scott

- ---------------text of fax follows-----------------


Date:     February 15, 1994

To:     Autoweek Readers' Fax Poll

Subject:        Should BMW revive the M.G. marque?

Answer:         YES.

However, they must come to understand what they have inherited, 
which is more than just "the name with the greatest brand recognition 
in the world," in the words of the Wall Street Journal when BL ceased 
building M.G.s and demolished the factory in 1980.  A new M.G. built 
by BMW must inspire -- and also permit -- the kind of driver involvement 
that has always set M.G. owners apart, while also catering to the modern 
expectations of reliability and performance.  A new M.G. must be light, 
nimble, responsive, predictable, and fun.  A new M.G. must carry on the 
tradition of feeling like a machine, with honest mechanical responses 
to the gear lever, the brakes, and the steering.  Above all, a new
M.G. must not isolate the driver and passenger (singular) from the 
feeling of being part of the world through which they pass, rather 
than being a cocooned observer in a capsule of steel.

As a long-time owner, restorer, racer of and writer about M.G.s, I have 
spent many hours wishing that some firm with the right vision, resources, 
and -- to use a word out of Hemingway -- aficion would acquire the marque 
and revive it.  Merely building performance versions of saloons is not 
reviving the marque.  To revive it requires an understanding of its soul.

To that end, I'd like to invite Bernd Pischetsrieder to the San Francisco 
Bay Area, where I'm actively involved with local British marque clubs (not 
only the M.G. Owner's Club, but also Morgan, Triumph, and AC) and 
competition drivers, to talk with him about what a new M.G. must be.  
With a little advance preparation, I'd like to arrange a chance for him 
to see and drive some restored examples, some competition examples, and 
some original examples on not only the best roads in the world for M.G.s, 
but also possibly on an autocross track.  What makes M.G.s special is not 
their numerical, statistical characterization, but the sympathy that the 
machinery always had for the character of its owners.  It's that sympathy 
that I can explain, or better yet arrange for Herr Pischetsrieder to 
experience first-hand, whether among the redwoods of the Donald Healey 
Memorial Grove in Big Basin or between the pylons at a Solo II.

I'd also like to devote the last paragraphs of this fax to a query letter 
to your editors.  I'd like to give you a few hundred words (500 or so) on 
what the new M.G. must be, from both a technical and a passionate 
standpoint.  The article would suggest ways of broadening the market 
appeal without diluting the car's spirit, on doing the most with the 
fewest resources (which has been part of the M.G. appeal for over 60 
years), and on ways to avoid disappointing those of us -- whom I feel 
competent to represent -- who have been keeping the faith for the last 
15 years.  In short, I believe it's possible, at least for a company
with the technical and financial resources of BMW, to make an M.G. that 
would appeal both to the Miata owner (a car I like; I won my first 
autocross in a Miata) and to those of us with an old M.G. in the garage 
for sunny Sunday afternoons.

My writing credits speak for themselves.  I've been a professional writer 
since 1980, specializing in computers and electronics.  For the past five 
years I've written a weekly restaurant review for the San Jose Mercury News; 
in 1993 I wrote a number of feature articles on automobiles as well, 
including one on autocrossing and one on driver's roads in the Santa 
Cruz mountains.  My new book, Multimedia Authoring: Building and 
Developing Documents (AP Professional), will be in bookstores by March 1, 
and contains an Apple HyperCard stack (on an enclosed diskette) that 
demonstrates the principles of multimedia design -- but that does so 
with an interactive look at the structure and maintenance of the MGB 
(including what I am sure is the first multimedia guide to synchronizing 
SU carburetors, a subject that makes much more sense when you can hear 
them in operation).  As for my automotive experience, I chased my regional 
SCCA license in an E Production MGB.  I'm an avid and modestly successful 
autocrosser (only one off-podium finish since 1991) in the very competitive 
San Francisco Region, and an active participant of the Internet's British 
Cars computer mailing list, a "virtual club" comprising members from 
around the world.

Please consider the query, and count this as an enthusiastic YES vote for 
what I've taken to calling the MGBMW.

Sincerely,

Scott Fisher
1244 Heatherstone Way
Sunnyvale, California 94087
(408) 736-3124
Internet: sfisher@megatest.com


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